Young bloods take over: Fajardo, Aguilar top PBA BPC race
The oldest professional basketball league in Asia is seeing a changing of the guards as two young players have stamped their class on the PLDT MyDSL 2014 PBA Philippine Cup.
June Mar Fajardo and Japeth Aguilar are currently leading the race to win the Best Player of the Conference award.
The Petron Blaze big man from Cebu leads the list with 43.5 statistical points (SPs) while the Kapampangan King is second with 41.2 SPS. Fajardo was posting monster numbers of 15.5 points and a league-leading 17.3 rebounds while adding three blocks per game in eight outings while Aguilar posts norms of 19.8 points, 9.5 rebounds, and a league-leading 3.8 blocks in ten games.
Arwind Santos, the league’s reigning Most Valuable Player, and Jayson Castro hold the third and fourth spots in the race. Santos is still his usual reliable self averaging a double-double at 16.9 points and 10.2 rebounds while Castro got his lofty spot in the race as he leads the league in scoring with 20.7 points per contest while adding 5.7 rebounds and 4.9 assists.
Rookie Greg Slaughter completes the top five also averaging a double-double with 15.4 points and 10.4 rebounds.
The top five players in the BPC race all belong to the top three teams in the current standings. GlobalPort’s Jay Washington and Sol Mercado, Ginebra’s LA Tenorio, and Petron’s Marcio Lassiter and Chris Lutz round out the top ten
Among the PBA ten teams, only Barako Bull and Meralco do not have entries in the top 20 players. Notable absences from the list are San Mig Super Coffee’s James Yap and Alaska’s Calvin Abueva.
In the race for the rookie of the year, Slaughter leads with 36.5 SPs with GlobalPort’s high scoring guard Terrence Romeo coming in at second with 23.8. Ian Sangalang, the second pick overall by the San Mig Super Coffee Mixers, holds the third spot while Rain or Shine Raymond Almazan is fourth. Justin Chua, the tenth selection of the draft, has turned some heads in the ongoing conference and managed to be the fifth most prolific rookie in the deeply talented pool.
